David Lee Clark, "The Sources of Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum," Modern Language Notes, vol. 44 (June 1929), pp. 349-357
Edgar Allan Poe was widely read in the literature of the occult, the supernatural, the unusual; he poured over stories of mystery, he ransacked historical and medical journals for pathological cases; and he absorbed this literature with a sponge-like thoroughness that reminds one of Coleridge. Like Coleridge, too, he appropriated, assimilated, and in a large sense made what he read his very own. Poe's sources have never been thoroughly traced, but what has been done leads one to hazard the opinion that enough material would be found to build another Road to Xanadu. Much has been written of Poe's plagiarisms, perhaps too much, for we forgive Shakespeare or Coleridge or Poe when the product he turns out is infinitely better than the raw materials from which he gleaned. This paper, therefore, is in no sense a study in plagiarism; it is merely an endeavor to point out the background of Poe's reading for the story of "The Pit and the Pendulum," and to allow the reader to draw his own conclusion as to the real debt which the author owed to his predecessors.
Poe's story contains four distinct motifs or elements: the idea of a contracting cell or dungeon, the pendulum as an instrument of torture, the application of heat to the dungeon walls to produce terror in the victim, and the pit with its attendant horrors. Let us consider these elements with the idea of finding parallels or sources.
In the Knickerbocker Magazine for February, 1850, a reviewer in a notice of the recently published edition of Poe remarks: "Although he [Poe] possessed a vivid imagination, and was in many instances a creator in literature, he was quite as frequently a plagiarist of both thoughts and forms. The story of 'The Pit and the Pendulum,' in the first of the volumes before us, for instance, is a daring theft and combination of two tales; one in Blackwood, under the title of 'Vivenzio, or Italian Vengeance,' and the other, a tragic scene by the German, Hoffmann. From the Blackwood writer, Mr. Poe took the gradually decreasing dungeon, and from Hoffmann, the pendulum, pointed with an instrument of torture. This machinery constitutes his whole nouvelette." Let us examine these two charges. We can dismiss the latter summarily by saying that a careful search through the tales of Hoffmann reveals no story of a pendulum used as an instrument of torture. Nor in commenting upon the sources of "The Pit and the Pendulum" does Woodberry, or Miss Phillips, or Palmer Cobb make any mention of Poe's obligation to Hoffmann. The reviewer's wish was evidently father to the thought.
Of the first charge a fuller explanation is necessary. Though there is no 'Vivenzio, or Italian Vengeance,' in Blackwood's for August, 1830, there is a tale by William Mudford entitled The Iron Shroud. This is undoubtedly the story the reviewer had in mind, and no student can doubt that here is the source of Poe's "decreasing dungeon." The parallelisms in descriptive phrases, in the actual shape of the dungeons, the gradually decreasing size, and above all the psychological analysis of the two victims are too striking to be merely accidental.
For his story Poe drew further upon Blackwood's. Good reason there is to believe that he got the idea of the pendulum as an instrument of torture, not from Hoffmann as the Knickerbocker reviewer asserted, but from a story in Blackwood's under the title of "The Man in the Bell." The narrator of this story one Sunday goes with a companion into the lofty belfry of the village church to unmuffle the bell. Some one calls his companion away. The regular bellman starts to ring for the Sunday service. Here is a situation bristling with possibilities of terror, such as was dear to Poe's heart. Let the reader compare the following excerpts from this story with the pendulum motif in Poe, "But by a hasty and almost convulsive effort, I succeeded in jumping down, and throwing myself on the flat of my back under the bell." " Over me swung an immense mass of metal, one touch of which would have crushed me to pieces . . . at first my fears were mere matter of fact. I was afraid the pulleys above would give way, and let the bell plunge on me. At another time, the possibility of the clapper being shot out in some sweep, and dashing through my body." " Every moment I saw the bell sweep within an inch of my face; and my eyes . . . followed it instinctively in its oscillating progress until it came back again." Notice that the victim in his delirium sees hateful and terrorizing pictures: "In the vast cavern of the bell hideous faces appeared, and glared down on me with terrifying frowns, or with grinning mockery still more appalling." Again like Poe's victim he comes out of his experience dazed by fear and terror. Finally, it should be noted that not only the details are markedly parallel, but the psychological effect on each victim is the same.
So much for the contracting dungeon and the descending pendulum. For the third element, the heated walls, a story in Blackwood's for December, 1837, "The Involuntary Experimentalist," furnishes a source. A situation so unusual as that of the unfortunate physician trapped in a boiler within a burning building could not escape Poe's keen sense of the horrible.
It is the main purpose of this study, however, to point out a likely source for the more important part of "The Pit and the Pendulum " - that is, the analysis of the victim's experiences in the dungeon, particularly the mental states through which he passes. It can be shown, I believe, that Brockden Brown's Edgar Huntly, chapter XVI is the actual source of the dungeon motif in Poe's story. In passing I should like also to hazard the suggestion, though I shall now offer no proof, that chapter XIV - the story of Weymouth: his ill-treatment at the hands of Spanish monks and his rescue by a French doctor - contains a probable source for the Inquisition element and for the conclusion of Poe's narrative.
That Poe was a great admirer of Brown and learned some of the tricks of his art from his predecessor the following comments from his own pen attest. "Nevertheless, leaving out of the question Brockden Brown and Hawthorne (who are each a genius,) he [Simms] is immeasurably the best writer of fiction in America." Again: "Among writers of the less generally circulated, but more worthy and more artistical fictions, we may mention Mr. Brockden Brown, Mr. John Neal, Mr. Simms, Mr. Hawthorne." In commenting upon "The Challenge of Berletta" Poe observes: "It is certainly a vivacious work, but is defective in having little of what we understand by the 'autorial comment' - that which adds so deep a charm to the novels of Scott, of Bulwer, or of D'Israeli - more especially to the works of Godwin and Brockden Brown." Again: "We have no hesitation in calling it ["Murder Will Out"] the best ghost-story we have ever read. It is full of the richest and most vigorous imagination - is forcibly conceived - and detailed throughout with a degree of artistic skill which has no parallel among American story-tellers since the epoch of Brockden Brown."
"The Pit and the Pendulum" and chapter XVI of Edgar Huntly both begin with reflections on the nature of sleep, dreams, delirium, death, and the power of darkness and silence over one's soul. The speculations in the two stories, furthermore, have much in common. The victim in each has swooned or fallen into a deep, mys-terious sleep. Poe goes into great detail in this part of his tale; but it is in describing the victim's return to consciousness that Poe has paralleled most closely Huntly's experience. Brown writes: "My return to sensation and to consciousness took place in no such tranquil scene. I emerged from oblivion by degrees so slow and so faint, that their succession cannot be marked. When enabled at length to attend to the information which my senses afforded, I was conscious for a time of nothing but existence." Poe: "Then the mere consciousness of existence, without thought - a condition which lasted long. Then, very suddenly, thought, and shuddering terror, and earnest endeavor to comprehend my true state." Brown: "From this state a transition was speedily effected." Poe: "Then a rushing revival of soul and a successful effort to move." Brown: "I perceived that my posture was supine, and that I lay upon my back." Poe: "I felt that I lay upon my back, unbound." Brown: "I attempted to open my eyes. The weight that oppressed them was too great for a slight exertion to remove. The exertion which I made cost me a pang more acute than any which I ever experienced.. My eyes, however, were opened; but the darkness that environed me was as intense as before." Poe: "So far I had not opened my eyes . . . I longed, yet dared not to employ my vision. I dreaded the first glance at objects around me . . . At length, with a wild desperation at heart, I quickly unclosed my eyes . . . The blackness of eternal night encompassed me." Each victim expresses fear - great fear - of the darkness. Brown: "But that which threw me into deepest consternation was my inability to see. I turned my head to different quarters; I stretched my eyelids, and exerted every visual energy, but in vain. I was wrapped in the murkiest and most impenetrable gloom." Poe: "It was not that I feared to look upon things horrible, but I grew aghast lest there should be nothing to see . . . My worst thoughts, then, were confirmed. The blackness of eternal night encompassed me."
Both victims have thus returned to consciousness and by the same general experiences, and each is thrown into consternation because of the darkness which envelopes him. Now each begins to speculate upon the nature and cause of his condition. Brown: "I endeavored to recall the past; . . . Since my sight availed nothing to the knowledge of my condition, I betook myself to other instruments. The element which I breathed was stagnant and cold. The spot where I lay was rugged and hard." Poe: "The atmosphere was intolerably close. I still lay quietly, and made effort to exercise my reason. I brought to mind the inquisitorial proceedings, and attempted from that point to deduce my real condition." Huntly fears that he has become suddenly blind; or that he exists as in a wakeful dream, or that he is buried alive. Worst of all: "Methought I had fallen into seeming death, that my friends had consigned me to the tomb." Poe: "Yet not for a moment did I suppose myself actually dead. Such a supposition, notwithstanding what we read in fiction, is altogether inconsistent with real existence - but where and in what state was I? . . . Had I been remanded to my dungeon?"
After this fruitless speculation, each victim sets about the exploration of his dungeon, along almost identical lines and with the same general experiences. Even the language employed is strikingly similar. Brown: "After various efforts I stood upon my feet. At first I tottered and staggered. I stretched out my hands on all sides, but met only with vacuity. I advanced forward." Poe: "Upon recovering, I at once started to my feet, trembling convulsively in every fibre. I thrust my arms wildly above and around me in all directions. I felt nothing; . . . I cautiously moved forward." Brown: "Proceeding irresolutely and slowly forward, my hands at length touched a wall. This, like the flooring, was of stone, and was rugged and impenetrable. I followed this wall. An advancing angle occurred at a short distance, which was followed by similar angles. I continued to explore this clue, till the suspicion occurred that I was merely going round the walls of a vast and irregular apartment." Poe: "And now, as I still continued to step cautiously onward . . . My outstretched hands at length encountered some solid obstruction. It was a wall, seemingly of stone masonry - very smooth, slimy, and cold. I followed it up; stepping with all the careful distrust with which certain antique narratives had inspired me. . . . I had met, however, with many angles in the wall, and thus I could form no guess at the shape of the vault . . . ", and in another paragraph Poe says, "In feeling my way I had found many angles, and thus deduced an idea of great irregularity;"
Each victim by now is fearful that his condition is hopeless and that search will be of no avail. Brown: "The utter darkness disabled me from comparing directions and distances. . . . Overpowered by my fears and my agonies, I desisted in my fruitless search." Poe: "This process [following the wall], however, afforded me no means of ascertaining the dimensions of my dungeon; I had little object - certainly no hope in these researches."
The victims now again ponder upon their forlorn state. Huntly remarks: "This knowledge of the desperateness of my calamity urged me to frenzy. I had none but capricious and unseen fate to condemn. The author of my distress, and the means he had taken to decoy me hither, were incomprehensible. Surely my senses were fettered or depraved by some spell. I was still asleep, and this was merely a tormenting vision; or madness had seized me, and the darkness that environed and the hunger that afflicted me existed only in my own distempered imagination." Poe: "I saw clearly the doom which had been prepared for me. . . . To the victims of its [the Inquisition's] tyranny, there was the choice of death with its direct physical agonies, or death with its most hideous moral horrors. I had been reserved for the latter. By long suffering my nerves had been unstrung, until I trembled at the sound of my own voice, and had become in every respect a fitting subject for the species of torture which awaited me."
The two victims are now seized with hunger and thirst. Huntly partakes of fresh panther's meat and Poe's hero, of food supplied by his enemies, and each with direful consequences. As soon as they have eaten, each is seized by dreadful thirst. Brown: "I was now assailed by torments of thirst." Poe: "A burning thirst consumed me, and I emptied the vessel at a draught. It must have been drugged; for scarcely had I drunk, before I became irresistibly drowsy. . . .I say to my horror; for I was consumed with intolerable thirst . . . the food in the dish was meat pungently seasoned." This meat, it would appear, had the same effect as the panther meat which Huntly ate.
Now each victim falls into a deep sleep as of death. Brown: "Gradually my pains subsided, and I fell into a deep sleep. I was visited by dreams of a thousand hues." Poe: "A deep sleep fell upon me." There are two other similar experiences. By some "miraculous chance" Huntly had escaped falling into the pit in the cave; Poe's hero "by the merest of accidents." Then, Huntly in exploring his cave counted one hundred feet; Poe says: "there was in all, then, a hundred paces." Then, too, the glaring eyes of the rats in Poe's story suggest Brown's description of the eyes of the panther.
It is not so much that these details are similar as that they given in the same general order of development, with the psychological effect. Poe, then, undoubtedly read his Brown and his Blackwood's and appropriated, much as did Shakespeare, his source. In this case he was unusually slavish in following those sources, for he not only took the four threads of his story from others, but followed Brown in the smallest details. It is, however, to be noted to his credit that when the materials passed through the crucible of his brain the amalgam was essentially his own, and something essentially finer than the originals.